Two plus years of governing without a single ministerial resignation due to impropriety is a record Stephen Joseph Harper will take to the Canadian people with honour and enthusiasm.

He is quite simply the cleanest Prime Minister in Canadian history.

His corporate ties - to Power Corp. in particular - are non-existent. He is no slave to any special interest group. He is pragmatic.

He's a suburban Joe and the son of a suburban Joe, unlike silver spoon fed Red Diaper Babies Dion, Ignatieff, Martin, and Layton.

He speaks clearly, frankly, and intelligently, something this country has not seen since the four hour speeches of the 19th century.

Notwithstanding the yeoperson efforts of the affirmative action wing of the Canadian media to get a scandal, any scandal, to stick to Harper - even a decade old scandal featuring his old nemesis Mulroney - have failed.

The attempts to smear him as a slasher of social programs have failed. The attempts to paint him as an enemy of women have failed. Theocon Bushitler antiabortionist? Fail, fail, and FAIL.

Harper is good for a minority hat trick and regrettably for the Liberal folk it's not even the second period yet.

As a strong and wise woman, your affiliation with the Liberal Party and their short-bus politics is well beneath your dignity.

Come over to the Conservative camp, where you are treated like an adult and judged on the content of your character. As an added bonus, you can hold your head high while supporting the cleanest government in Canadian history. Yes?

Gayle thought you said "no clap", TiGuy, and was offended that you might infringe upon the right of Canadian women to lead the world in STD rates and sex tourism, which they in fact do. We don't intend to address those issues until the Third Harper Mandate, so it's cool.

The Liberals and their friends play the short game, for the immediate headlines. The short game is never good in politics. It makes for good temporary headlines, but generally allows the more superior tactical party to utilize it to predict outcomes. Predicting outcomes is crucial to gaining strategic superiority.

This is just getting started.

Stephen Taylor has a snippet, but its the tip of the iceberg.

Note that Harper started this. His point from the outset? Elections Canada is not an impartial body, but one which has become corrupted (like their previous Liberal masters who filled their ranks during the previous decade).

That's the assertion. How does Elections Canada prove Harper wrong? On the eve of a CPC cross exam of them, they decide to storm the CPC office, filing the affidavit which will allow them to accomplish this in Toronto, before a Liberal judge, an affidavit which does not appear to meet the balance required of ex parte applications,

during the execution of which the Liberal party is there waiting to video tape it.

Given Harper's starting position, he couldn't have asked for a better response.

It is rare when the opposing party actually creates evidence for you as the dispute unfolds. But Harper was able to predict the rash response. What information do you think the CPC had, that would force Elections Canada to act in such a manner? What do you think that cross examination was going to establish?

Some more food for thought, food which you should all digest because it is chalk full of wholesome goodness:

There has been no denials by the Liberals regarding Harper's assertions that the Liberals used this same "in and out" strategy. Want to guess why?

In other words, all of this was done in the context of Elections Canada condoning the very same conduct when done by the Liberals.

The over-the-top warrant spectacle made partisan liberals feel good for a few hours. It also put off a devastating cross for a few weeks.

I'll give you one little bit of the iceberg that's sitting there just below the surface:

Adscam.

Sworn evidence accepted by a tribunal that millions of stolen funds was distributed to Liberal ridings. It was beyond the scope of the tribunal to investigate the use of funds in the subsequent election.

What do you think Elections Canada's response to this flashing neon sign pointing to impropriety was?

I'll give you an analogy: it's like a beat cop walking past the guy holding a smoking gun over the bloody corpse, to give the "unwanted type" across the street a frisking for littering.

I have to admit the latest offering that this entire thing is actually a plot to expose EC over Adscam is very funny. I guess Harper must have had this in mind when he authorized all those dubious money transfers during the last election. All that chess playing and all...

Allegations made at the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities concerning breaches of the financial reporting obligations under the Canada Elections Act were the impetus for the recommendation to extend the limitation period for commencing a prosecution under the Act from the current seven years to ten years. The Chief Electoral Officer maintains in his report that the current limitation renders him incapable of pursuing allegations of the kind made during the Commission of Inquiry, which go back to dates outside the limitation period.

Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, CPC): Thank you very much. There are so many questions we have to ask, I don't even know where to start. I just read the paper today that has a quote about funding in Quebec. Somebody has to be responsible to answer these questions, and somebody has to be responsible to hold people accountable. It's a complicated process that you run, and we're all looking to you to help us with direction.

But if you read the quotes, they say: “Mr. Béliveau said he later received $75,000 to $100,000 in an envelope full of $20 and $100 bills from Mr. Corriveau.” “Mr. Béliveau said the rest of the money--$200,000--was given to another Liberal organizer in Eastern Quebec....” “In addition, Mr. Brault has told the inquiry that he gave about $1 million in various contributions to the Liberals between 1996 and 2002....” It just goes on and on and on.

You hold me accountable. You drive us crazy, literally, about every nickel and dime in our return. We have to account for everything. Yet here we're talking about $300,000 in cash in paper bags in $20 bills and nobody is accountable for that? I don't understand how Elections Canada can stand on the side and say, “We don't have any responsibility here for this, but for you, Mr. Casey, you have to account for every single nickel and dime.” I'm just frustrated by this.

I don't see Elections Canada involved in this debate, and it seems to me it should be. There are people here, probably, who were elected only because of criminal activity. There are members of Parliament who could be here.... I mean, $300,000 in $20 bills--that's four full independent MPs' election funding. I just find it frustrating that Elections Canada is not involved with this and is not protecting us and not protecting other MPs.

So could you tell us what role Elections Canada has in all these paper bags full of money that are affecting elections? These are electing people illegally, if they're true. Does Elections Canada have an ounce of a role here, or who does?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley: Through you, Mr. Chairman, Elections Canada is responsible for auditing what it receives as reports and for enforcing the statute. Until December 31, 2003, the statute said that any prosecution of infraction of the statute had to be undertaken within a year and a half of its commission. As of January 1, 2004 the law was changed. It said that from this point on--because there is no retroactive legislation in this country--any infraction will be counted for a year and a half from the moment its disclosure becomes public, by which time the commissioner must undertake prosecutory action. There is a seven-year timeframe now associated with that, so it must be undertaken within seven years.

Those two things were modified as a result of Bill C-24. We have applied the statute fully. If there were any role for Elections Canada, we would have undertaken it by this time.

I have to admit the latest offering that this entire thing is actually a plot to expose EC over Adscam is very funny.

I don't find outright fabricatons funny at all. Biff's not here to learn or teach, he's here to lie and disrupt and get other people to do tremendous amounts of work. Have you ever seen Biff link to anything or quote anything?

There's reason for that, and practiced liars like Biff know what that is.

I am sworn to expose liars across the political blogosphere. It is my mission. :)

Oh, don't let me stop you. But it really is a waste of time. They don't care if they're exposed; their job is to get the lie out there and amplify it.

If it's something knowledgeable people can debunk with information they have at hand, then that's fine. But when progressives and liberals engage in lengthy research to refute them, it's a shame, as the liars have then managed to put the onus on someone else to challenge their baseless assertions. And pointing out a baseless assertion is the easiest thing in the world...it starts simply by asking "how do you know this?" If they can't back it up, or admit it's an assertion based on nothing but belief, discussion over. Call him or her a liar and call it day.

Named figures who command a certain attention require (and deserve) more effort, of course, but that doesn't apply to about 99% of anyone who calls him- or herself "conservative" these days.

Just as an aside, Anglo culture is the most allergic to the accusation of lying than any I'm familiar with, which are largely more direct. Among francophones (and others), people accuse each other of lying all the time (though it's often done with inflection, body language and facial expressions)...it's no big deal. It just really emphasises the expectation that no one expects any bullshit, and if you attempt it, you'll be called on it. You're then left with the choice of being candid (which is not the same thing as being brutally and scrupulously honest), lying in a way you know can get away with (so the lie had better be insignificant or at least entertaining), or...and this is important...shutting the hell up, or risk never being believed, ever again, about anything at all.

"just as an aside, Anglo culture is the most allergic to the accusation of lying"

When we say 9 AM we mean 9 AM, not mañana, bien proche, or soon come. These things matter to us.

Know why Che Guevara had success as a revolutionary? He was Irish on his mother's side, and therefore the only guy on the South American continent with the genetic capability to show up at meetings on time, so they made him General.

When we say 9 AM we mean 9 AM, not mañana, bien proche, or soon come. These things matter to us.

Matters to you, maybe. I can imagine how ill-tempered you become when the out-call massage is tardy.

If you ever live in any of those mañana or soon come places, you'll find out that a) being scrupulously prompt is an expectation with no real purpose; nothing else happens on time, and quite often, the infrastructure is so poor that even a rain-storm can cause delays and b) People will be awfully tolerant of your own tardiness, whether you have a good reason for it or not. After a while, you start appreciating the fact that you can put things off until tomorrow and don't have to have heart attacks about it or work late into the night, which causes a lot of North Americans to become anxious, neurotic, on the edge and sleep-deprived.

A purported inability to read legislation (you apparently chose to ignore the notion of a continuing offence in that particular allegation ),

is now a lie?

Interesting how you backtrack from your flagrant accusations when called on them.

Back to the point though. If the money is acquired in year one, but they still possess it in year two (or three or four) and use it as part of their campaign, how would that not be an offence at those later times.

You seem to profess to be quite the legal begal. Is possession of proceeds not a continuing offence?

I try to help. I explain that criminal code offences are investigated by police. I direct you to the EA, as it was worded in 2000, which is where you will find EC's acutal mandate (not the one you have fabricated), and yet you seem completely unable to back up your assertions.